


Bits of Victory

by ahimsabitches



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Australian Slang, Dogs!!, Lots of Cursing, Other, doge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 17:07:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7323628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahimsabitches/pseuds/ahimsabitches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the second prize for the fic giveaway I'm running for the month of June! @rabidrockhound on Tumblr wanted a piece about Kalashnikov taming a feral dog! This story is safe for work. No warnings. </p><p>I really hope you like it!! I had an absolute blast writing it!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bits of Victory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kalashnikorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalashnikorn/gifts).



At first he'd thought the sound was the crisp report of a .22, but one a sight too small for him to even have the dignity to possess.

But it came again, _close_.

Kalashnikov rose from the squealy chair, sucked a metal tooth and peered out the window of his "office", which used to be the chief guard station, clinging to the lip of the great yawning maw of the mine, reinforced to hold a desk, cabinets, a chair, a warlord, and not much else. He could have-- and probably _should_ have-- taken one of the twin refining towers or at least the armory as his base, but they were on ground level and you couldn't see shitall. If he had to be in charge of this demon-fucked hellpit, he'd at least do it right.

It wasn't a .22 had made the noise. It was a goddamn _dog_.

Kalashnikov's jaw fell and for a hot minute he could do nothing but gawp like a rookie in a whorehouse. "What the fuck...?"

The dog stood bold as brass on the corrugated steel walkway spanning the entire lip of the mine, its ribby washboard sides pulsing in and out, gazing blearily at the guard station. Kalashnikov's mind spun. He hadn't seen dogs in... fuck, almost fifteen years? Longer? The last dog he'd seen had been an emaciated dingo with a twisted back leg boiling with maggots, a mangy yellow coat, and the feverish light of survival in its eyes. It had come up on them in the middle of the goddamn wasteland as they were salvaging the remains of a Rock Rider camp they'd blasted through, and the damn thing had near torn his captain's leg off. It had growled like Moore, mean and throaty and _desperate_.

Kalashnikov had, without much thought or effort, waved Jane at it and-- _PATPATPAT_ \-- It had crumpled with three chewed red dots from muzzle to forehead.

But this dog had all its limbs, and wasn't a yellow-bellied dingo. Too short and stocky. Its coat was mottled black and brown, but from inside the glass smeared with dirt and smoke and ore dust, Kalashnikov couldn't tell if it was just the pattern of its coat or mange. Slowly, tracking the dog like a target, he eased himself to the door of his office and clicked it open as gently as he could, hand on Sarah at his right hip. His heart punched against his ribs for no fucking reason. The dog could have been rabid, and Kalashnikov thought so, if it was unafraid of the constant mechanical roar of the forges and refinery.

It'd be a piece of piss to kill the dog if it lunged; it was just as emaciated as that dingo, but its belly hung behind its ribs low and full. Full of worms, most like. The dog didn't seem to hear the door open, but heard it shut. Or heard the _clickclickticclicktic_ of Kalashnikov's bullet-festooned kit as he warily moved toward it. It perked its wolfish ears, until then held donkeyish, almost horizontal. A light lit in its eyes, but Kalashnikov had grown up around dogs, and he knew meanness when he saw it.

In another fucking lifetime, he'd wrestled with mutty farmdogs and had followed loping white sheepdogs to whatever they'd wanted to show him: a dead lamb or a lost ewe or the carcass of an alpha dingo or, in one case, a young croc they'd killed. He'd loved the docile, sober oildrop eyes of those old sheepdogs, and the scrappy pariah-dog before him was possessed of those same eyes.

He knelt on the steel, shoving Jane out of the way but keeping his hand on Sarah, knees and ankles popping like semi fire, and held out his hand to the dog. It regarded him with a tense smile and a lolling tongue but made no move to flee.

"Hey, bitzer, hey. What the hell are you doin' all the way out here?"

He leaned down further, twisting his head to the side and earning a nice healthy squeal from the tendons in his neck. Damned if he wasn't getting old too. Both Moore and Richard outyeared him and outsicked him, but that didn't mean he wasn't toeing sixty-five, and that didn't mean he'd spent the last half of his life breathing irradiated air and eating food seasoned with flecks of ore.

The pariah-dog was absent a donger.

Kalashnikov's breath caught.

That belly... a she-dog...

"Oh fuck me dead," he croaked, and rose as quickly as he dared. This time, the rifle-pops in his joints came with blinks of pain but he had no more care for them than the forge-workers beginning to collect around them like bits of flotsam left by a gentle tide. "Stay there, little sheila-dog, stay." He backed into his office, eyes locked on the dog, looking like she was trying to grow roots into the rough steel upon which she stood. Kalashnikov unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk and drew out part of the last fragrant relic of the profitable but brief peace between the Citadel and Bartertown: two stiff strips of dark pink meat. The smell of pork smacked his nose and saliva squirted into his mouth but he gripped the pieces and returned, cautiously, on the balls of his booted feet, to the dog. "Hey, here. You want some tasty jerky, little bitzer? Come on." He squatted and held out the jerky to the dog. She didn't move. He nudged the heavy, bulleted helmet off his head and pulled his gloves off. "Come on. I'm not gonna hurt you, little girl." The dog didn't move. Kalashnikov unlooped Sarah first, then Jane, slowly, from their crisscrossed places on each hip, and laid them gently aside. Gingerly, he sat and crossed his legs in front of him. "C'mere, little lady. Y'look like you could eat a goanna 'tween two slabs of bark."

Later, the forge-workers would marvel at how similar their commanding officer and master and judge of the wasteland looked to a little child. A little child that had once wrestled with farmdogs.

The dog lowered her head a fraction, her cracked black nose twitching as the smell reached it.

Kalashnikov's spine tingled. "C'mon, little girl. I'm not gonna hurt you."

The dog's coat was reasonably full; what bald spots there were looked to be from simple malnutrition. It was spackled black and white over her back, rust-brown on her belly, legs, and cheeks. Healthy, Kalashnikov marveled, considering the situation. She licked her lips. Her eyes were the color of sweet, pungent whiskey, and Kalashnikov watched them intently.

"C'mon, mama-dog," he said, lowering and softening his voice as much as he could. "Come in with ol' Kalashnikov. Where it's safe. Y'don't want to be out here no more. The wasteland's no place to raise your pups. C'mon."

He scooted closer, just a bit, and the dog took a jerky, sudden step back. _Cunting shit_ , he hissed to himself. He scooted back, kept the jerky held at the end of his arm, and waited.

Kalashnikov was not a patient man. Not anymore, when heads flew on the flick of a pair of ice-blue eyes and a moment's hesitation meant the difference between a new M240 for the Peacemaker and armor-piercing death spraying from the black bore of that same M240.

But he was not looking down the bore of a gun right now; he was looking into a pair of whiskey-smooth eyes and at a creature who had reached the end of her ability to cope, to manage, to endure.

He saw this vacuous, starey-eyed look in people every goddamn day of his life since the world fell, and he'd become inured. Had to. When Moore had taken people, especially women, and Kalashnikov had seen the relief so intense it was painful wash over them, he'd gritted his teeth, gripped Sarah or Jane or both, and waited.

And soon, terror-- or rage-- replaced relief, and Kalashnikov had decided, since none of them would ever be as lucky as he was, that surrender looked better in their eyes.

But not in this particular pair.

After half a fucking eternity on the corrugated steel, feeling his bony arse go numb, the clarion scent of food became too powerful. Step by herky-jerky step, the pariah-dog shambled forward. Kalashnikov kept one hand on the Colt buntline in his belt just in case, but there was nothing but fear and apprehension in the dog's pulled-back ears and tucked tail. She licked her lips in hunger and submission and Kalashnikov let out his held breath. The dog sniffed at the jerky and he sat sniper-still.

With viper-speed, the dog snatched both strips of jerky out of his hand and gulped them in a few quick jabs of its small wedge-shaped head. Kalashnikov grinned, a broken steel thing, but the joy in it was whole. He rose slowly. The dog eyed him. He took a step backward. Another. Slowly bent down and collected Sarah and Jane. Another step. The dog took a step toward him. Licked her lips. In this slow way, Kalashnikov led the pariah-dog into his office, and fed her the last of the jerky. While she gobbled it, he gently shut the door behind her.

"There, you little ripper," he said, his body sagging with spent adrenaline as if he'd just been in a skirmish, and the dog eyed him with a mixture of hope and tight-muzzled caution.

He sat down at his desk, flicked on the ancient needle-faced radio, looped the creaky, rusted headphones over his head, and tapped out a message to Richard.

Morse: MAJ K TO DICK DO YOU HAVE ANY MEAT BONES INCLUDED

The dog stood where he'd left her, gazing noncommittally into the dusty steel-and-glass room.

Morse: RICHARD TO MAJOR KALASHNIKOV YES MAY I ASK WHY

Kalashnikov snorted.

Morse: JUST SEND SOME

Morse: RICHARD TO MAJOR KALASHNIKOV I NEED AMOUNTS AND CONTEXT I AM CURIOUS WHY YOU ARE SUDDENLY INTERESTED IN HUMAN FLESH

Kalashnikov fisted his hands and resisted the urge to slam one down on the table. The dog blinked at him.

Morse, angrily: JUST FUCKING SEND SOME ASAP YOU GREAT PONCY CUNT

Morse, slowly: RICHARD TO MAJOR KALASHNIKOV NO NEED TO GET TESTY EXPECT YOUR SHIPMENT AND A BILL OF LADING IN APPROXIMATELY SEVEN DAYS

"Motherfucker," Kalashnikov hissed and ripped the headphones off. "The fuckin' whacker's doin' this on purpose, girl," he said to the dog. "Stay right there; I'll be back."

Kalashnikov spent the next few hours scouring the entire mine, rooting contraband out from beneath bedrolls and flea-infested mattresses, occasionally holding his own men at Sarah- or Jane-point, and returned with a paltry armload of blankets, a canteen of water, a dented bowl, a few shards of bone, and a pitifully small strip of jerky. He filled the water bowl and the dog emptied it in speedy, greedy _slopslopslopslopslopslop_ sounds while he piled the blankets in the corner of his office furthest from the door. She would want to make a nest to have her pups in, and this was the best he could do.

"Hey girl," he said as softly as he could and knelt a few arm's lengths away from the sheila-dog, his back against the far wall. Closer to her now, he could see just how damned skinny she was, and how out-of-place her swollen drum of a belly was on the rest of her. Sand crusted in the corners of her doleful eyes and he wanted to reach out and brush it away, but he didn't want to spook her. He held out the jerky. "Want s'more?"

To Kalashnikov's great shock, the dog covered the distance between them in four loping steps and chomped the jerky. She seemed to still have most of her teeth. Heart chattering, he reached out a gently closed fist. "Easy, old girl. Have a sniff of ol' Kalashnikov. There's a girl."

And she did. Cautiously, whiskey-brown eyes flicking from his hand to his long, lined face, then she nosed his fist open and placed her muzzle into his palm.

Kalashnikov coughed a breathless laugh and swallowed a lump in his throat. "G--good girl. There's me girl." The dog bumped his palm with her head in a wordless but clear _pet me please._

And who the bloody fuck was he to deny her? Her tri-color coat was dirty and patchy but her skin was, for the most part, whole. Sunburned and scarred, she'd avoided mange, maggots, fleas and ticks. "A wonder, you are, little ripper," he said, smoothing her fur and scratching her ears. "Survivin' this far, and with a payload of pups on board too."

The dog sat and scooted close to Kalashnikov, chuffing through its black muzzle, eyes blissfully shut. Kalashnikov resisted a powerful urge to reach down and catch her up in a viciously tight hug.

She would need a name. But what? Kalashnikov named his people after guns and his guns after people, but this dog was neither. He'd figure something out. Right now he wanted all of his brain for the dog, for the rough greasiness of her coat, for the rank doggy smell of her, for the bony press of her against his chest, for the warm miracle of her, here against all odds, a walking memorial to an existence he'd thought had gone up in flames.

She snuffled his face and gave his craggy cheek a lick, and the next laugh cracked into a sob. He hugged her then, gently, _gently_ , and she tensed but did not pull away.

"Good girl, little bitzer, good girl. Ol' Kalashnikov's gonna take care of you and yer pups."

They remained that way for a while.

Kalashnikov woke with a jerk and a snort, reaching for Sarah even as every goddamn joint in his body _shrieked_ at him. "Gawdammit, bloody fuckin'..." He groaned and held a hand to his back. He'd fallen asleep sitting on the bare steel of his office.. with the dog! But his lap was empty and his heart lunged into his throat. The door stood shut. It was pitch dark save for weak cold starlight that fought and died on the grubby windows, so he couldn't tell if he'd bolted the door. Pulling himself upright by a hand on the windowsill and a healthy rapid-fire round of curses, he checked the door. Locked. Sarah and Jane leaned primly against the wall, right where he'd left them. So where was the dog?

The darkness congealed in the corner where he'd built the dog's nest... and peeped. He leaned close, hand on his rickety back, and the dog's eyes winked on like twin stars fallen to earth.

"Hey, girl," Kalashnikov whispered. "You okay, little bitzer?"

The dog chuffed. Something else, near, peeped.

Kalashnikov had lost count of how many times in the last few hours his goddamn heart had skipped a beat. He fumbled on his desk for the lamp and paused, almost not wanting to disrupt her, to see....

There was no place for a bitch and her pups. No place for anything tiny and fragile here. Nor anywhere. Richard would probably eat them. Moore would trade them. Or shoot them, if he was in a temper.  What would Moore think if he saw his Major mooning over a bunch of baby pups like some babystruck housewife?

Kalashnikov clicked on the lamp.

The dog blinked trustingly up at him in the sallow yellow light. His grin showed the full double row of teeth, both metal and bone, and suddenly he didn't give a fart in a jet turbine what Moore would think. Moore could sit on his precious Anaconda and spin.

"Me and you've got a bit of work ahead of us if we're gonna take care of six pups, little bitzer," he said, and then he knew her name. "Nike. Little Triumph."


End file.
